


A Land of Thorns and Roses

by Pixelfun20



Series: There Are Much Worse Games to Play [1]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Alexis | Quackity-centric, Claustrophobia Warning, Eret Redemption (Video Blogging RPF), Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury, Manberg goes boom, Technoblade is a good bro, Thinking About Death, Toby Smith | Tubbo Needs a Hug, Villain Jschlatt (Video Blogging RPF), Wilbur Soot Needs a Hug, Wilbur Soot is Not Insane, Wilbur Soot-centric, Yeah Quackity showed up and took over half the fic sorry, but Wilbur does not press the button, he's just struggling. a lot., kind of. mostly implied
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:40:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27403684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pixelfun20/pseuds/Pixelfun20
Summary: Wilbur doesn’t know why he accepts the invitation. Perhaps he just wants to speak to Schlatt, face to face. Perhaps he thinks there is some chance, however slim, that they can negotiate some sort of settlement. Perhaps he expects nothing at all.Part of him is surprised when his own weapon is used against him. Part of him expected it all along.--ORManberg blows up, but Wilbur isn’t the one to push the button.
Relationships: Alexis | Quackity & GeorgeNotFound, Clay | Dream & Wilbur Soot, Eret & Wilbur Soot, Georgenotfound & Clay | Dream, Toby Smith | Tubbo & Wilbur Soot
Series: There Are Much Worse Games to Play [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2013130
Comments: 112
Kudos: 845





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> *Looks at other wips*  
> *Looks at The Coding Conundrum, not updated in weeks*  
> *Starts new wip*  
> \--  
> Do not fear! That little sequence of events occurred two weeks ago. I waited to post this little passion to project until I was certain it was going to be finished. I have around 13k words written now, and expect to finish sometime next week. This will be around 3-4 chapters of 5k words each, and will be updated every few days. 
> 
> As a note for the timeline, this takes place the day before the Festival.

Wilbur doesn’t know why he accepts the invitation. Perhaps he just wants to speak to Schlatt, face to face. Perhaps he thinks there is some chance, however slim, that they can negotiate some sort of settlement between their factions. Perhaps he expects nothing at all.

But he goes anyway. He doesn't tell Tommy about it—no point in it, really, and if he ends up dead or captured it's better he doesn’t come rushing in after him—and Techno has been out for the last few days. Instead, he wakes up before dawn, writes a note saying that he’ll be out for the day, and leaves. He’s done it before, to mine or hunt. Tommy won’t bat an eye.

Schlatt’s invitation asked for him to meet in the White House. Weapons are not allowed, “to not disturb the peace,” but the new president isn’t stupid and allows armor so the visitors could feel safe and actually be willing to go. Even so, Wilbur feels strangely vulnerable in his armor, whose only netherite piece is the chestplate. Perhaps it is how he’s just walking straight down the wooden path of (L’)Manberg, open for the world to see. 

(He pretends that there aren't piles of TNT stacked underneath his feet, placed there himself. Part of him screams at him to blow the place sky high, now, right  _ now _ . Part of him cries to wait, wait,  _ wait _ . He feels so torn, like he’s walking a tightrope between two extremes.)

Tubbo meets him at the entrance. He’s been the one to really convince Wilbur to go; Tubbo had been told about the meeting and knew that Schlatt wasn’t planning anything truly malicious. This was more a formality than anything.

(Trap trap  _ trap _ , part of him screams. Chance chance  _ chance _ , screams the other.)

Still, his hands are surprisingly steady as he hands the invitation to Tubbo, who gives it a quick look-over before grinning, straightening his suit, and passing it back to him. He leads Wilbur down the main path into (L’)Manberg. The place is surprisingly empty, though Tubbo exclaims with a chip in his voice that Schlatt had sent everyone out for the day to make the meeting less in his favor.

(They’re hiding, hiding in the buildings, behind the hills, hiding and waiting until the right moment came to attack. He’d seen Quackity and George heading over to Sapnap’s place earlier on the way there, devoid of any armor or weapons.)

“Tommy isn’t coming?” Tubbo asks, and the name of Wilbur’s younger brother makes him snap out of his thoughts. It takes him a moment to gather his thoughts enough to respond.

“...No, sorry,” he answers, and pretends not to notice how Tubbo’s shoulders slump. 

They walk together in silence for a time. Wilbur isn’t blind; he can see how uncomfortable Tubbo is around him. He knows Tommy is having a negative influence on him, knows it’s only a matter of time until he too, betrays him (no he wouldn’t, the boy is just worried). 

Soon enough they’re walking up the steps to the white house. Tubbo hurries to get ahead of him by a few steps, pulling open the door for him. Despite himself, Wilbur finds himself giving Tubbo a small smile at the kind gesture. Tubbo grins back, all innocence and hope, and the smile falls back down again into a swirling pit of emotions Wilbur can’t make heads or tails out of. 

Well, the White House’s interior is pretty enough. Wilbur takes in a mismatched stone, cobblestone, and andesite floor, the wooden walls (closing in ever ever closer to his demise), and lets Tubbo direct him to the room directly in front of him.

He opens the door and takes in the meeting room. It’s mostly empty, with a few paintings here and there. The centerpiece of the room is the large mahogany table, easily a few inches thick and polished enough to almost be a mirror. 

Then, of course, there’s Eret and Dream. Dream, ever the survivalist, is sitting facing the door. He’s covered head to toe in enchanted netherite armor, over his green hoodie and jeans. His white mask covers the entirety of his face today, rather than leaving the mouth free as he usually does.

Eret has his back to him, but he turns as he hears the door open. Unlike Dream, who is in enemy territory, Eret is more confident in his lack of armor, instead in his red king’s cloak, golden crown (and oh how he hates hates  _ hates _ that golden crown, wishes he could crush it into a thousand tiny pieces and make Eret  _ watch _ ) and sunglasses adorned on his face. His surprise is clear, though, as his gaze lands on Wilbur and recognizes who’s joined him.

“What?” Wilbur asks, ignoring the odd feeling that was rising in his chest and taking one of the open seats next to Dream. “Didn’t think I would come?”

“I didn’t know you were coming,” Eret says slowly, carefully  _ (menacingly) _ , folding his arms.

“I have more right to be here than you.”

There’s a heavy silence between them, and Eret doesn’t respond. Wilbur huffs, looking towards the door, which Tubbo has remained standing next to.

“Schlatt does like to keep people waiting, doesn’t he?” Dream says slowly. With the mask and an emotionless voice, it is impossible to know what he is thinking (Murder fighting  _ betrayal _ ), but Tubbo shifts, a little uncomfortable. 

“I don’t know, sir,” he replies, scratching the back of his neck. “We still have a few minutes until the meeting starts. I’m sure President Schlatt is just as eager to reach a more formal status with your nations.”

More like assess their power, Wilbur thinks. Declare war on the Dream SMP, perhaps? Demand Eret’s kingdom be annexed? Formally decry Pogtopia’s very existence? Ambush the leaders of his rivals all at once? Maybe one. Likely all four. It was hard to know. 

(Schlatt wouldn’t dare attack. Not with Dream there. The man was a god among men, easily the best pvp’er on the world if you discounted Techno. Not only that, but George was sure to rescind his support if Schlatt went directly against him, and if he went Quackity was sure to follow.)

He wishes Schlatt could get here so Tubbo could leave.

(Tubbo is his spy on the inside, no matter how unreliable. He’s also something of a brother.)

For a moment, there’s nothing but a heavy silence between the four of them. And then something shifts.

Wilbur smells it first, a heavy, sharp scent that’s just  _ there _ enough that he can tell what it is, what it means. It takes him a split second to realize what’s going on.

Eret is confused. Tubbo doesn’t notice. Dream’s mask prevents him from smelling anything at all. 

_ 6… 5… _

“TUBBO! GET UNDER THE TABLE!” Wilbur screams at the top of his lungs, already vaulting over said piece of furniture and towards said teenager, who is looking at him in a mixture of surprise and confusion. 

_ 4… 3… _

“Wilbur!” Eret shouts, standing up. Dream does the same, pulling out his signature shield and axe from his inventory (of course Dream, of all players, would not heed the rules) and looking for a potential threat.

Wilbur makes it to Tubbo, grabbing him by the arm and  _ yanking _ him the few feet towards the heavy wooden table, ignoring how he cries out in pain. 

_ 2… 1… _

_ Too late. _ “GET UNDER THE TABLE!” Wilbur screams one more time, pulls Tubbo in front of him and manhandles him into a bear hug (and oh, for once he’s so grateful Tubbo never grew anywhere near Tommy’s height). Together, they roll under the table, and Wilbur makes sure Tubbo is firmly locked above him, Wilbur’s own back to the cold, stoney floor—

The stone, for a split second, is warm.

And then the ground erupts.

* * *

The next thing he’s aware of is the ringing in his ears.

A few moments pass. Wilbur feels his shoulder move once, twice, sending shooting waves of pain through his back. He must have made some sort of noise because the movement stops, and he feels some pebbles shift underneath his face.

Huh. He must have lost his helmet at some point.

Wilbur lets out a heavy breath and blinks his eyes open. It’s dark, almost pitch black. The only light comes from his enchanted armor, sending out waves of purple light that are just bright enough to make out his surroundings.

His memories come back in a wave, and he gasps, then coughs as he inhales a large amount of dust. He tries to take inventory of himself and where he is, and starts looking around.

The first thing he sees, with a great sense of relief, is Tubbo. The boy looks relatively unharmed, the entirety of his nation being blown up underneath him considered. He has a cut on his head, sending blood dribbling down and around his face, to the chin, and he is caked in soot, gunpowder, and ash. His face is close to Wilbur’s, his mouth making frantic movements. 

“What are you doing?” He tries to say, but even though he can feel the air passing his lips, he hears nothing except that deafening ringing. Tubbo pauses, then his mouth moves even more frantically. Wilbur’s heart beats even faster. “Tubbo I can’t hear you.”

Tubbo’s mouth stops moving, and he pulls away a little. Wilbur takes a moment to take in where exactly they are.

There is a solid slab of wood above him, slanted at around a 45 degree angle, and it takes Wilbur a few seconds to realize that it’s the table from the meeting room, snapped in two. Stone, shredded wooden planks, and bricks are piled around them. The space is tiny. One of Wilbur’s legs is mostly free, but the right has a crushing weight down on it, up to his hip. Tubbo looks like he’s not pinned, and from his current position there is enough height for him to get into a hunched sitting position if he leans over Wilbur, and the space is around three feet wide and five feet long.

Finally, his gaze falls on a splotch of color in the corner of his eye. Wilbur turns, squinting at it as he tries to make it out, and then freezes.

It’s Eret. Or, the upper half of him. He’s visible from the chest up, lying face-down, the rest of his lower body covered in rubble. His cape is torn, crown lost, and his sunglasses lay shattered a few inches away from his unconscious expression. Like Tubbo, he is bloody and covered in grime. Wilbur watches him, unsure of what to feel, as his chest moves up and down. Still breathing. Alive.

Tubbo’s face returns to his field of vision. Wilbur looks up at him, and he holds up a bottle. Wilbur has to squint in order to identify it as pink, and another few moments as a healing potion.

Tubbo points at the bottle, then at him. Before Wilbur can register what he means, he uncorks the bottle and pours a little bit on his fingers. Wilbur winces as he touches his face, but forces himself to relax (this was Tubbo, he wouldn't hurt a fly. He’ll abandon him at the drop of a hat). Gently, Tubbo moves his face over to the side a bit, and Wilbur can feel more than hear the steady drip-drip-drip of liquid as the boy administers the potion. After a moment, he turns his head over and repeats the process on the other side.

Tubbo holds up a single finger, and Wilbur nods, knowing it’ll take a moment for the potion of healing to take effect. In the meantime, he gazes up at the table above them, the table that had saved their lives, the table that was currently holding up the weight of a building, maybe more.

He wonders how much air they have, down here. There are many different pores in the rubble, and whether they served well enough as ventilation to keep them going for any prolonged period of time was anybody’s guess. 

Wouldn’t it be ironic, for him to die down here.

The idea isn’t as scary as he expects it to be, but Wilbur is drawn away from that line of thought as sound begins to return. It’s scaringly quiet, but distantly he can hear Tubbo humming nervously to himself, his voice warbly and cracking here and there. He sounds like he’s on the verge of tears.

Though to be fair, he’d had his hopes raised that his meeting would be a first step towards peace, and had his home blown up on him. Wilbur had been expecting something bad to happen, but he hadn’t, and he pities the boy for it.

“Are you alright?” He asks, and his voice is raspy and a little distant, but there.

“Can you hear me?” Tubbo asks in response, and it’s relieving to hear him again.

“Yeah. When did you get a potion of healing?”

Tubbo blushed a bit, barely visible in the dim light as he returned the partially-full potion to his inventory. “I uh… stole it from Schlatt. Figured it’d be best to have a backup plan just in case things went wrong. I only have one, though… I only thought about myself when I took it.” And there is guilt in his voice. “I’ve used some on you and some on Eret, but I’m trying to conserve it.” 

“Good idea,” Wilbur says, suddenly tired. He fights to keep his eyes open. “How long have I been out?”

Tubbo shrugs a little helplessly. “Well, you noticed  _ something _ , and uh, you threw us under the table and then… there were just all these explosions and we got thrown around and I think I blacked out for a minute or two. I woke up and was here. It took me a few minutes to wake you up.” He shivers, glancing in the corner of the room. “I tried to get Eret, but he’s not waking up, Wil. I think he’s seriously hurt.”

Well, anyone can see that. At the moment Wilbur can’t really bring it in himself to care.

There is a short pause between them. Tubbo shifts, accidentally bumping his head on the table-roof as he tries to find a more comfortable position. Wilbur moves his free leg up a bit, allowing the boy to lean back against it.

“...You didn’t set off the TNT, did you?” Tubbo whispers, voice shaking. Questioning.

(This is it; he’s finally been betrayed. He was the one who placed the TNT, it’s fair, expected even, of Tubbo to ask him this.)

“No,” he says, and is surprised by how earnest he sounds. “I’m not sure I ever wanted to.”

He can just see Tubbo’s face turn to him for a moment, then look away again.

“Everyone will think you did,” he says, and he sounds like he is about to cry.

Wilbur has no tears left to give. He looks up at the wooden table and knows that he’s expected everyone to turn against him for weeks now. It’s almost peaceful, the emotion that settles over him, pinning him to the ground like a wet blanket.

(Finally he’s on his own; he’s free free  _ free _ . Oh, how it  _ hurts _ , knowing Tommy and Techno, Niki and  _ Phil _ will think he willingly took his own life like this.)

“I put the TNT there,” he replies, finally. “I may have well pressed the trigger.” Tubbo really does start crying then, small sniffles as the tears begin to fall. “I’m sorry, Tubbo. I never meant to have you here, no matter what happened.” And he’s surprised once again with how much he means it. He reaches out with a hand, ignores his skin and muscles’ protest of the stretching movement, and Tubbo nearly collapses. He is easily guided down until he’s curled up into the crook of Wilbur’s arm, sobbing into his chestplate.

Wilbur does nothing but lay there, staring up at the table and rubbing soothing circles into Tubbo’s back.

He wonders how long it’ll take them to die.

* * *

Quackity is out hunting with George when the earthquake hits.

It’s supposed to be their day off—Schlatt had some top secret meeting with Dream, Eret, and Wilbur going on, and wanted Manberg to himself for the day—and he’s more than ready to have fun and just relax. Being Vice President, especially to someone like Schlatt, is taxing in more ways than one. He doesn’t even notice how tense he’s been until he’s galloping through the plains, George right on his tail. 

They have a few good kills on them, and enough food to make a good dinner once they get back. Quackity has just told a really good joke and George has thrown back his head in laughter, pausing their mounts together by the river.

The ground shakes. It's a series of rumbles that comes in waves, and Quackity’s horse nearly loses its balance several times. It’s all he can do to hold on until finally, a few minutes later, it subsides.

There’s silence between them for a moment, both men trying to catch their breath.

“I didn’t know the SMP was on a fault line,” Quackity tries once his nerves have quieted enough to stop the shaking in his hands. “That was a big one.”

“We aren’t,” George says, suddenly sounding very quiet and very small. He’s facing Quackity, but his eyes aren’t on him, instead focused on some point just over his shoulder.

Fearing the worst, Quackity turns around. 

There’s a large plume of smoke rising into the sky.

It’s directly behind him, coming from…

Coming from…

“ _ DREAM! _ ” George screams in horror, making Quackity flinch from the sheer volume of his voice. In a flash, he’s rearing up his horse and driving it as fast as he can back to Manberg, leaving Quackity in the dust. 

“George!” Quackity calls out, cursing to himself as he snaps the reigns of his horse to race after him. “Stop! It might not be safe!”

But George, of course, doesn’t listen. If anything, he spurs his horse to go even faster, and Quackity can do nothing but follow and hope that the man doesn’t run head-first into danger. Something’s happened to Manberg, and if Schlatt got caught up in it…

Quackity’s blood runs cold. He doesn’t think he’s ready to be president. Not like this.

He shakes the thoughts out of his head and rides harder. Soon enough, they’re jumping over little streams and hitting the main road of the Dream SMP. The dust cloud looms higher and higher into the sky, casting a dark aura over the rest of the land the closer they get. They pass Purpled along the way, the boy shouting something at them, but Quackity can’t hear him over the wind and his blood roaring in his ears and in all honesty he’s not about to stop and let George go off on his own.

Manberg comes into view, and Quackity forgets how to breath for a solid ten seconds.

The center of the nation is just. Gone. The presidential stand, the White House, and parts of the office buildings are just a pile of smoldering rubble. The parts of the office buildings still standing are on fire and rapidly falling apart, throwing the smoke they’d seen earlier up and into the sky. 

The presidential stand is hit the worst; the only reason Quackity knows what the smouldering pile of rubble and ash is is because he knows Manberg by the back of his hand by now. He finds himself desperately hoping that the meeting Schlatt had been having was nowhere near there. He doesn’t even think that someone in full netherite could survive a disaster that big if that was that the stand looked like now. 

Some sort of strangled sound escapes George’s throat, and when the ground becomes too uneven for his horse to continue, he dismounts, nearly gets his foot tangled in the saddle before freeing himself and dashing into the fire.

“DREAM!” He screams again, voice frantic. Desperate. 

Quackity reaches the spot a few seconds later, also jumping off his horse and sprinting after George. The smoke is thick, and he coughs a few times, pulling his shirt up to his mouth to try and breathe better. George stumbles on some rubble, and that’s all Quackity needs to lunge forwards and grab him by the arm, pulling him back.

“Quackity, stop it!” He cries out, emotion and smoke choking his voice until he falls into a flurry of coughs. “Dream’s in there!”

“You’re just putting yourself in danger!” Quackity shouts back, struggling to hold back his friend with how hard his hands are shaking. “Look, there hasn’t been a death message in chat yet, alright? Dream’s still alive. Maybe he wasn’t even here!”

George struggles for a few more minutes, still hacking up smoke, but something that Quackity said seems to have gotten through to him, and he goes limp, letting Quackity guide him back to their horses. As soon as they’re in cleaner air, though, he’s pulling out his communicator and typing frantically. Quackity checks his own communicator as the message goes out.

_ <GeorgeNotFound> dream where r u _

_ <GeorgeNotFound> dream pls also sap I need u at manberg _

_ <Skeppy> ?? _

_ <Sapnap> Dude what’s up? _

_ <GeorgeNotFound> jsut get over here. emergency plz _

George runs a hand over his face, and he’s definitely shaking. When Quackity silently guides him down to the ground, he doesn’t protest, putting his head in his hands and kind of just staring at the ground in shock.

In all honesty, Quackity is tempted to join him. He looks out over the ruins of the nation he is leading and can’t help but feel a sense of crushing grief and hopelessness wash over him.

Dream, Schlatt, Eret, and Wilbur aren’t dead yet. Everyone would have seen their deaths in chat, and known what fate had befallen their friends and come running. But who’s to say that a message won’t pop up in chat any minute now?

“Quackity! George!”

Quackity turns around, and he can hear George start. Purpled is running up the wooden path, Antfrost silently on his heels. It’s clear they’ve sprinted the whole way here; once he’s within a few feet Purpled has to stop and put his hands on his knees to recover. Antfrost is more well off, just breathing heavily as he looks up at the scene before him in horror.

“What happened?” Quackity asks. “George and I were out hunting and didn’t see anything.”

Antfrost shrugs. “I was inside, so I didn’t see anything. Sounded like an explosion, though.” 

“I was outside,” Purpled gasps, and he seems well and truly frightened. “It was TNT. And a lot of it. Only TNT can make a fireball as big as the one I saw.”

Quackity’s heart sinks, and he can hear George’s breathing get faster.

Purpled grabs the hem of Quackity’s sleeve, looking up at him desperately. “Quackity.  _ Tubbo’s _ in there.”

The world freezes. Dream is one thing. Schlatt is another. Tubbo…

Tubbo’s just a  _ kid _ .

“What?” He exclaims, turning to him. “Why in the world was Tubbo there?!”

Purpled shrugs helplessly, overwhelmed. “I-I don’t know! He and I were gonna hang out for the day, but Schlatt said he was going to be a few minutes late and asked Tubbo to watch everyone and then he  _ left _ — ”

Something clicks.

“Purpled. You said Schlatt was going to be running late?”

A nod. 

“Then he might not have been caught in the blast. Ant, do you think you could find him?”

Antfrost nods. “I’ve tracked Dream in worse conditions,” he says, and there is a heaviness to his voice there, of worry and terror for an old friend, and Quackity recalls how the cat hybrid is the newest addition to the so-called “Dream Team.” He must not be having a good time, either. 

“Try and find him. Maybe he knows where the meeting was supposed to be.”

Antfrost doesn’t reply, just casting his ice-blue eyes across the rubble that used to be Manberg’s bustling center. A moment later though, he’s sprinting away almost inhumanly fast speeds, vaulting over debris and fallen buildings like they’re nothing until he’s out of sight. 

“We need to start looking for Dream,” George says, rising to his feet. Some of his initial panic seems to have faded, but the terrified light in his eyes is still there. 

Quackity nods mutely, unsure of what to say.

“Here,” Purpled offers, taking off his sweatshirt to reveal the white long-sleeved shirt he’s wearing underneath. A netherite sword follows, and then he’s cutting the sleeves into long strips. “Do any of you have water?” George nods, pulling a water bucket out of his inventory. Purpled takes it and thoroughly soaks the cloth, handing one strip each to the older men and keeping one for himself. “Heard this can help with the smoke.”

“Good thinking, kid,” Quackity laughs airily, tying the strip of cloth to make a makeshift mask. 

“Where do you think they would have been?” Purpled asks. 

“We can figure that out on the way,” George answers snappily. With his mask, he’s seemed to have regained his frantic desire to save his friends and is striding back towards the center of the destruction. “Come on!”

Purpled looks up at Quackity, and he can see how afraid the kid is, especially for the safety of his friend. He seems to be looking for reassurance.

Quackity can’t give it, not without lying. So instead he simply nods at Purpled, and heads off after George, the boy right on his heels, into the smokey furnace. 

* * *

It’s getting hotter. 

Wilbur notices this as Tubbo’s sobs start to calm down. They’ve been lying down here for God knows how long, trapped underneath a table holding up a building, and it’s starting to get hotter.

He tries not to think of what is going on above ground to cause this inflection of heat, instead threading his fingers through Tubbo’s hair. The boy seems to find comfort in the touch, curling up close to his chest and sniffling.

He’s going to  _ kill _ Schlatt.

The thought pops into his head without warning, and it makes Wilbur blink in surprise. He hasn’t said it aloud, or really thought about it, but it was obvious that Schlatt had been the one to orchestrate this whole thing. It was genius, really. Use Wilbur’s own weapon against him and take out all his enemies at once. Everyone, even (especially) Tommy and Techno would believe he was the one to do it. 

But why Tubbo? Why put his right hand man in harm’s way in such a manner? How had he even  _ found _ the control room with the ignition to the TNT?

(Tubbo betrayed him; he gave Schlatt the information and then Schlatt betrayed Tubbo right back. The boy is too devoted to Tommy to even consider doing such a thing.)

But whatever the reason, the anger is there and it is real, a burning flame flickering in his chest.

Tubbo sniffles loudly and hiccups, and some of that anger fades.

“Let’s talk about something,” Wilbur says suddenly, his voice ringing in the little cavern. 

“Mm?” Tubbo hums, looking up at him in confusion. Wilbur forces a bit of a smile for him.

“Maybe someone will hear us. Tell me, what do you want to do once this is all over?”

There’s a short pause.

“Well, now…. I guess I’d go and explore the world a bit. Tommy and I would go off and we’d make some little house in the woods where people won’t bother us.”

“That sounds nice.” And it hurts, that he’s not included in that image, but it’s nice and they deserve that. “What then?”

A shrug. “We didn’t really talk about it much. I’d probably find some more bees to take care of. They’re really cute.”

“I don’t know what you see in those things, honestly.”

A watery chuckle. “You’re just mad ‘cause you got stung.”

That had been two months ago. It feels like years. “I had done nothing wrong!”

There’s another pause. “What about you?”

“What?”

“What do you want to do? Once everything is over?”

Wilbur opens his mouth, ready to reply, and then stops himself. Lead L’Manberg again? That’s what he was about to say, but he’s long given up on that. He was done leading the moment Schlatt took the stand; it had just taken him weeks to realize it. He’s so tired, honestly, and he doubts he’ll ever be able to look upon this land again without knowing what he’s done to it.

What then, if not leadership? He hadn’t exactly had a backup plan past “blow up Manberg” when he’d been at his lowest a week ago. Pogtopia was a temporary thing; it was to last either until Manberg is taken back or everyone finally gives up on that dream. Tommy probably would go off with Tubbo, and Techno was only here for the anarchy of it all. Neither would be staying with him in the long term.

“I’d go to Niki’s bakery,” he decides, ignoring how it’s likely a pile of rubble right now. “And have a good carrot cake.”

Tubbo snorts in surprise. “Why carrot cake?”

“Because carrots are  _ clearly  _ the superior food.”

“Don’t go saying that around Techno!”

“He can bite me. I’ve had enough potatoes to last a lifetime.”

Tubbo’s about to reply when a sudden  _ thunk  _ silences them both. In the silence of the rubble, it’s thunderous and sends Wilbur’s heart beating.

Then it comes again. In silence, they listen.

_ Thunk, thunk, thunk. Thunk… thunk… thunk.... Thunk, thunk, thunk. _

“A pattern?” Tubbo murmurs. Wilbur shushes him, staring at the inclined side of the table, where the sounds are coming from. After maybe half a minute’s pause, they return.

_ Thunk, thunk, thunk. Thunk… thunk… thunk.... Thunk, thunk, thunk. _

It’s familiar. A pattern, like Tubbo said. Wilbur narrows his eyes in the dimness, trying to figure out what about it was tickling the back of his head.

_ Thunk, thunk, thunk. Thunk… thunk… thunk.... Thunk, thunk, thunk. _

Wait…

Three short. Three long. Three short. 

…---... 

“SOS,” he says aloud. “Morse code. That’s Dream, Tubbo.”

Tubbo sucks in a sharp breath. “I thought he was dead,” he admits. Wilbur nods; he’d thought the same.

The SOS call sounds again. 

“What was that?” Tubbo questions, looking at him.

“SOS again. I don’t think he can hear us.”

“Then we should tap back to him, right?”

“Right,” Wilbur smiles at him. “But I can’t reach the far wall. So guess who’s getting a crash course in Morse Code?”

“Oh! Really?” Despite everything, there’s true excitement in his voice. 

“Yep. Now, before I explain anything, go and copy this.” He grabs a spare shard of andesite and taps it on the ground, one long, one short, one long. .-. “Dot-Dash-Dot. It stands for the letter R. Message received.”

Tubbo nods determinedly, then shuffles out of his arms and towards the other side of the pocket. Wilbur repeats the signal one more time, and then Tubbo copies him. 

There’s a long silence before a response comes. 

.-- .... ---, thunks through the wall.

“‘Who?’” Wilbur translates. He thinks for a moment, then raps .-- / -. / - into the ground. “‘W ‘n T.’ We’ll stick to the first letters of our names for brevity.”

“Okay,” Tubbo says. “Can you do that a bit slower?”

“Sure, of course. Just do what I do.” And he taps a bit slower this time, pausing after each letter to let Tubbo tap it out on the table. 

The next message comes quicker, a single short tap.

“‘E.’ He’s asking about Eret, I think.”

Tubbo glances at the prone form that they’ve been pointedly ignoring. The other man is still breathing, but he hasn’t stirred. Wilbur raps out  -. -.-. -. ... -.-. ..., pausing for a moment to remember the code for ‘s.’

“Unconscious. I’ve left out the vowels for brevity, so we’ll see if he gets it.”

The message goes through, and soon ... - - … returns.

“Stts…” he hums, then snaps his fingers as he gets it. “Status. I’m going to say ‘ok u?’” He shows Tubbo how to tap --- -.- / ..-

.... -.. / ... .... .-.. -.. .-.

Wilbur winces. “‘Head, shoulder.’ He’s seriously injured.” Before he can formulate a response, there’s another set of taps. .--. -. -.. / ..- -. -.. .-. / - -... .-.. “... _ oh _ . He’s under the other half of the table”

They respond with ... .- -- ., or ‘same.’ Then, -.-- / ..- / -.. --- / .. - from Dream. Wilbur winces.

“What did he say?” Tubbo asks. Wilbur shakes his head, ignoring how tight his throat feels. Without responding verbally, he taps out -. / ... / - .-. .- .--. and reluctantly, Tubbo copies him.

_ y u do it? _

_ n S trap. _


	2. Chapter 2

It’s difficult to get to the presidential stand. It was hit the hardest, the epicenter of the explosion, and the wind is blowing smoke from the fires towards them, and so it’s difficult to get there. 

Quackity understands why George is leading them there, though. Since it was the epicenter of the explosion, anyone who could have been caught nearby would be in the most immediate danger. But he can hardly see with the smoke stinging his eyes, and the makeshift mask can only do so much. At some point, Purpled grabs his wrist for guidance, but they never pause, still pushing onwards. 

Soon the collapsed stone and dirt turns into a blackened ash, crunching underfoot. Quackity’s stomach does flips in his body, making him feel nauseous, as he casts his eyes about to try and catch sight of a stray limb or scrap of clothing. To both his immense relief and disappointment, there’s nothing. 

George pauses, then turns back to them, pausing to speak. 

“Look for netherite armor,” he says, pausing to cough violently from speaking in the smoke. “It can’t burn and — ” another few coughs. “Dream came in an enchanted set.”

Quackity nods, jerking his head away from the epicenter. George noticeably hesitates, but then agrees with another nod. With that, Quackity taps Purpled’s shoulder and they turn back towards the portions of Manberg still under rubble. The remains (if they can even be called that) of the presidential stand are laid out before them, smoking and burning. They fan out a bit, then, and begin spreading out their search. George goes to the right and Quackity takes the left, careful to keep Purpled between them in case something happens to the boy.

His heart is pounding in his chest as he picks his way through the debris, and suddenly he wishes he’d brought armor with him; bits of wood and jagged stone are cutting into his jeans and hands. But it’s also dizzyingly hot as it is, so he supposes it’s a lose-lose situation.

How are they even supposed to find everyone? If they were in a building, like the White House, Dream, Tubbo, and the others could be trapped under meters of rubble. 

Movement on the horizon catches his eye, and Quackity’s eyes widen as, closer to the edges of the blast, some of the rubble moves. 

“PURPLED! GEORGE!” He calls out, drawing the two’s attention in a flash. He points to the movement and darts after it without waiting to see if they’re following him.

A figure emerges from the rubble, covered in grime and soot, and it takes Quackity a solid ten second to realize with a jolt that it’s Niki. 

“Niki!” He calls out, stumbling as he coughs before picking up the pace a bit. Niki turns towards him, relief crossing her features. Her clothes are torn and her hair a half-ashen nest, but besides some redness to her features she looks alright. Quackity waves at her, and she waves back.

The air clears a bit as he moves away from the epicenter, and they meet in a significantly less clogged section of Manberg. 

“Quackity!” Niki breathes, eyes wide. “Were you caught in all this too?”

“No, I was out hunting with George,” Quackity explains as Purpled reaches them, pressing his mask to his face to try and breathe a little easier. “Are you alright? Can I touch you?”

“I’m fine,” Niki says, but she’s nodding anyways, and Quackity gently takes her arm and looks it over. It’s covered in small cuts and the occasional burn, and a quick glance over the rest of her confirms the same. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Quackity admits.

“Some kind of TNT blast,” Purpled puts in, as George arrives. “I was closer. It was definitely TNT.”

Niki’s hand flew to her mouth. “Who would do such a thing?!”

Quackity shrugged. “I dunno,” he says. “But everyone but Schlatt, we think, was in Manberg and were caught in the blast. We were looking for them. I had no clue you were still here.”

“I was just closing up my bakery,” Niki explains, and her voice turns mournful as he looks over at the wooden ruins before her. Quackity realizes that they’re practically standing on top of her shop. “Then there were all these loud bangs. I’m not sure what happened; there was this series of bangs and a flash of light, and then I woke up here.”

“Well, let’s get you out of here. We need to have Fundy look over you, you don’t look well.”

In a flash, that momentary grief is gone, replaced by a rock-hard anger. 

“Wilbur and Eret are in there!” She exclaims. “Do you see what this place looks like?! I’m not leaving them to die!”

“It’s too smokey!” Quackity shot back. “And we don’t even know where they are.” He sighs, suddenly feeling so very tired. His first experience really leading people was letting him begin to understand why Schlatt and Wilbur had looked tired all the time. This was exhausting. “Look, we think Schlatt might not have gotten caught in the blast and Ant’s looking for him. He’ll know where they are.”

“Sapnap and Skeppy just arrived, too,” Purpled put in, tapping his communicator. “They want to be filled in.”

“George?” Quackity asked, turning to his friend. The brunette glanced over his shoulder, at the smouldering ruins, then tsk’ed and shook his head. “Fine,” he conceded, as if the very words were painful to say. “But let’s hurry. We need to find Dream.”

* * *

Eret finally begins to stir a little while after Dream and Wilbur’s morse-code conversation ends. Tubbo is half-asleep, curled into a ball, and Wilbur is busying himself trying to dislodge his leg, which is firmly pinned under the rubble and starting to hurt. Both of them are sweating from the rising heat, though it seems to have leveled off at a balmy temperature reminiscent of a hot summer’s day.

Wilbur reaches out with his arm (he is really starting to grow stiff), and shakes Tubbo’s knee, jolting him back to full awareness. 

“Mm, wha-” Tubbo hums, blinking his eyes open. Wilbur nudges him and points at Eret, whose breathing has quickened and eyelids are starting to flutter. “Oh my god. Eret!” He crawls across their little cavern to the king, pulling out his half-full potion of healing and setting it next to him.

Some odd noise comes out of Eret’s mouth, and he starts to go under again. Tubbo isn’t having any of it, though, and firmly shakes his shoulders. Eret’s eyes, white and almost glowing, shoot open and he gasps in pain. Tubbo retracts his arms with a jerk once he sees it. 

“Eret, I’m so sorry!” He exclaims. “You were falling under again, and I had to try and wake you up while I still could.”

“...Tubbo?” Eret slurs softly. The boy nods with an innocent (naive) smile.

“Yeah, it’s me,” he says. “How are you feeling?”

“Like I got hit with…” the white-eyed man slurs his words a bit before picking up again. “A fallin’ building. Or somethin’.”

Tubbo laughs, but it sounds remarkably forced. “Yeah… about that…”

Eret seems to be growing more coherent, as his next statement, a minute later, is much more firm. “Let me guess. We’re trapped under a building.”

“Yeah,” Tubbo sighs sadly, as if it’s his fault. “Sorry ‘bout that.”

“...How?”

“It’s a long story,” Wilbur says, and Eret’s head jerks towards him, only now realizing that he’s there. “Schlatt set up a trap.”

“He… blew up his own land?”

Wilbur shrugs, looking away and up at the ceiling.

“Hey, I have a healing potion,” Tubbo says, trying to lift the mood. “Where are you hurting the most?”

Eret opens his mouth, and pauses to think, before he abruptly pales. Wilbur raises an eyebrow, watching as the king hurriedly tries to compose himself.

“Just my shoulders. And I have a killer headache.”

“What about your legs?” Tubbo asks. Eret shakes his head. 

“Nah. I think they’re just pinned. There’s pressure and I’m pretty sure they’re bruised, but I don’t think anything’s broken.”

He’s lying. Wilbur knows that with an absolute certainty he hasn’t felt in weeks; he sees the way Eret shifts, clearly disturbed about something even as he insists everything is fine. But Tubbo buys it, nodding at him with trust (Eret doesn’t deserve that; he doesn’t deserve  _ anything _ ). He uncorks the healing potion and spreads it underneath Eret’s shirt. The king noticeably relaxes a bit, slumping down into the ground with a sigh.

“Thanks,” he says softly.

“No problem,” Tubbo shrugs. “I’m the only one who can really move, anyways.”

“Where’s Dream?” Eret asks, after a few moments of silence.

“He got trapped on the other side of the table,” Wilbur put in. “We were talking in Morse Code a few minutes ago.”

“Oh,” Eret says, and that’s the end of it. Tubbo yawns.

Wilbur lets out a long breath. “Go back to sleep, Tubbo. You’re exhausted.”

The boy doesn’t protest that. He glances at Eret, who nods, and that’s that. Tubbo’s eyes quickly begin to droop again, and he curls up once more, tucking his knees underneath his chin. A few moments pass in silence, before Tubbo’s soft snores begin to fill the little cavern.

“How much air do you think we have?” Eret muses, a melancholy look on his face. Wilbur shakes his head. 

“There’s some pores in the rubble. Considering how we’ve been down here for at least an hour, I don’t think suffocation is how we’re going to go.”

“Well. At least there’s that.”

An awkward silence falls between them, and Wilbur decides to just cut to the chase.

“You’re lying.”

Eret freezes, just long enough that Wilbur can see it. “What?”

“You lied. When you told Tubbo your legs didn’t hurt, you lied to him.”

Eret shifts, suddenly looking very scared and very small as he tucks his chin into his arms. For a long time, he says nothing.

“Wilbur?” And his voice is shaking. Wilbur wonders if he should care more about that fact then he does.

“Yes?”

“I wasn’t lying. My legs don’t hurt.”

“Well, you’re lying about  _ something _ .”

“Wilbur, I can’t feel my legs.”

* * *

Schlatt is there, with Antfrost at his side, as Quackity’s group makes it back to where he left the horses. Sapnap is there, too, pacing frantically and muttering something to himself, while Skeppy looks to be in a state of shock, watching the smoldering ruins with an open mouth.

“George!” Sapnap exclaims as he catches sight of his longtime friend. He rushes forwards towards them. “You’re alright!” He pauses, looking them over. “Where’s Dream?”

“He was caught in the blast,” George says lowly. “We can’t find him.”

Sapnap’s face goes white, and he grabs George’s hand, expression morphing from surprise, to fear, and finally settling on an angry determination. “Well, we gotta go find him, then! What are we doing, just standing here?!”

“We don’t know where the meeting was,” Purpled explains, and looks at Schlatt, the unasked question clear on his face.

“It was supposed to be in the White House,” the president answers, looking over the group. There’s something in his expression that Quackity can’t place. “Skeppy, go take Niki to Fundy, will you?”

Skeppy turns to Schlatt, snapped out of stupor, and then nods. Niki sends Schlatt a low look, but does as instructed, limping off with the other man at her side. Once they’re out of earshot, Schlatt turns to the rest of them. Sapnap, meanwhile, waits for no man, and with the location of their friend, he’s off into the smoldering wreckage, George at his side.

“Now, who did this?” Schlatt demands once they’re gone. “And how in the world did all this TNT get under my nation?!”

Quackity holds up his hands. “I don’t know, man. George and I were out hunting.”

“Well  _ something  _ has to have happened! I had Tubbo watching those guys!”

“Who do you think did this?” Antfrost interrupts them, watching the president and vice president with a carefully schooled expression that conveyed almost nothing but a low, simmering anger. “Who would have the motivation to go and blow up Manberg?”

“What?” Purpled asks, but Quackity pieces together the suggestion a split second slower than Schlatt.

“ _ Soot. _ Of course.” He curses quietly under his breath. “Of course you’re right, Antfrost. You saw how he was after the festival announcement, Quackity. The man’s a useless hobo. Probably thought that if he couldn’t have my nation, no one could.”

Quackity, though, finds himself hesitating. “But he was in the middle of the explosion. And Tubbo was there! He wouldn’t just suicide bomb the place!”

“Please,” Schlatt scoffed as Antfrost shook his head. “Quackity, you saw him less than a week ago! The man’s lost it.”

He was right there. Quackity remembers the brief encounter he’d had with Wilbur last week. The torn clothes, tangled hair, and dirty hands. And the eyes.

The eyes that had looked upon him and Schlatt with a long, simmering hatred.

Was that hatred enough to kill both himself and Tubbo?

“You’re right,” he finally conceded. “I just… didn’t think he’d go this far.”

“Well, we need to go and help George and Sapnap,” Purpled says after a moment of silence. 

“Do you see that place?” Schlatt scoffs, crossing his arms. “It’s covered in smoke. We won’t last more than an hour.”

“Schlatt,  _ Tubbo’s  _ in there!”

“That’s Mr. President to you, kid,” Schlatt shoots back, and Purpled flinches, stepping backwards. Quackity moves an arm in front of him protectively.

“Schlatt, calm down,” he says, holding firm when the president turns his murderous glare to him. “Look, I get you’re upset. We all are. But Tubbo isn’t lost yet. He, at least, deserves to be found. Respawning after a death like this… it wouldn’t be pretty for a full grown man, much less a kid. He doesn’t deserve that.”

For a moment, Schlatt’s expression doesn’t change, and Quackity braces himself for daring to speak against him in such a manner. But the president glances between the three of them, then sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Fine,” he said. “But if something happens, this is on your head, Quackity. And,” He looks at him directly, his expression darkening more than Quackity ever thought it could. “If any of you happen to be the one to find Soot, I want him so dead it’ll take him  _ months _ to respawn.”

* * *

At some point, Wilbur drifts off.

It takes him a while. He doesn’t say anything to Eret’s admission. What could he say? “I’m sorry” would be a lie. But “I don’t care” would be one, too. And so would all of the other responses he could think of. So he says nothing, does nothing as Tubbo begins to snore and Eret sniffles a bit here and there. Dream taps in once, twice, but Wilbur doesn’t have the heart to wake up Tubbo to reply. 

Eventually the rhythmic sounds of Tubbo’s sleep drag him down into unconsciousness as well. 

He wakes up, once again, to Tubbo frantically shaking his shoulder. He grunts as shocks of pain arc up his neck and down his arm, and swats the offending hand away. 

“ _ Ow _ ,” he mumbles, blinking sight back into his eyes. “What?”

Tubbo is looking down at him. His face is ashen, and he doesn’t say anything for a moment.

“What happened?” Wilbur asks. He turns his head around. The little cavern is still the same. Eret is still in his half-buried position, but he’s looking at him with an odd, half-worried expression that makes him shiver. “Tubbo?”

Slowly, Tubbo raises his hand. It’s covered in something dark, and in the dim light it takes Wilbur a solid few seconds to realize that the substance is blood. 

“Tubbo, what happened?” Wilbur exclaims, moving himself as much as his stiff muscles will allow to look over the boy better. He can’t see anything, but his leg is preventing him from moving much and it’s so dark he can hardly see. But with his cursory glance, the boy still looks as unharmed as he was before he drifted off.

“Wilbur, that’s not my blood,” Tubbo says, and his voice is shaking, as if he’s about to cry again. “It’s  _ yours. _ ” 

For a moment, Wilbur thinks he’s lying. He’s stiff, and sore if he moved, but that amount of blood…

“No it’s not,” he says, and it feels like a lie even as he says it. “I don’t have any major wounds like that; I would feel it.”

Tubbo’s expression takes on a tinge of horror. “Wilbur, your back is bleeding. I can see it seeping through the dirt.” 

Wilbur pauses, looking at him with an incredulous expression. He’s been lying face-up this entire time, back to the ground. How could Tubbo tell? 

“Please, just let me look,” Tubbo asks, almost pleading.

Wilbur lets out a slow, steadying breath, and then nods. He picks himself up a bit, and Tubbo helps him turn over so he’s perched on his side, facing the wall. His neck is stiff, making it tough to hold up his head, and his shoulder hurts whenever it’s particularly jostled, but his netherite-encased back feels nothing.

Maybe, he thinks as Tubbo gasps so loud Wilbur can hear it thunder against his ears, that’s a bad thing. 

“Oh my god,” Eret breathes, and even though Wilbur can’t hear him he can practically see the way his face is contorting in horror, maybe revulsion.

“How bad is it?” he asks quietly.

“I…” Tubbo trails off, and then his steadying hands leave and Wilbur sucks in a breath as he struggles to hold himself upright. “Just a moment.”

There’s the sound of a bottle uncorking, and running liquid, but Wilbur can feel nothing of the healing potion that must be running down his back. And then there’s the sound of clothes moving, and he pauses as he feels cloth brush against the arm holding him up. Silently, Tubbo’s hands guide him down again, and Wilbur notices that his suit coat is gone.

“What happened, Tubbo?” He asks, or maybe demands. The boy digits a bit, clearly hesitant.

“Wilbur, I don’t — ”

“Your Netherite chestplate is busted,” Eret interrupts, nodding at the younger boy. He looks over at Wilbur, and their eyes meet. To his surprise, Wilbur can see nothing but earnestness there. “When you protected Tubbo and went under the table, you were face-up, weren’t you?”

“Yeah…” 

“What I think happened is that your netherite armor protected you from most of the blast. Probably saved your life, I think. But the TNT was so strong — maybe you were just underneath one or two pieces of TNT — ” Or five, Wilbur thinks. “That the explosion blew parts of the back off. I think the leftover heat, well, it burned you. Burned you enough that I don’t think you can feel it, Wilbur.”

Wilbur blinks, thinking about that for a moment. “Huh,” is all he can think to say.

“Your skin is black and charred,” Tubbo adds. Wilbur looks at him. His hands are shaking. “And bleeding real bad. I used the rest of my healing potion on you, but — ”

“It’s alright,” Wilbur interrupts him, waving a hand. “There’s not much we can do about it.”

“Wilbur!” Tubbo exclaims. “Don’t pull that on me. You’re bleeding out!”

“I know.”

“ _ Wil _ , don’t talk like that!”

“Tubbo.” Wilbur does his best to keep his voice as steady and serious as he can, if only for the boy’s sake. He reaches out and takes Tubbo’s hand. “Whatever happens, it’ll be alright.”

“But what if you die?”

“Then I’ll respawn.” Slowly, painfully, torturously. “And we’ll both take things as they come. You’re working yourself up.”

Tubbo chuckles at that, a few tears slipping free of his eyes. “But Tommy would be so mad at me if you died.”

“If that’s the case, I don’t want to imagine how mad he’d be if I let you die.” Wilbur squeezes Tubbo’s hand. “Tubbo. Everything will be alright.”

Tubbo wipes his nose on his dirt-caked sleeve, and nods. “Yeah. Yeah, it will.” He turns to Eret. “Are you doing alright?”

“Eh,” Eret shrugs. He still looks a little shaken from seeing whatever mangled mess Wilbur’s back used to be. “Considering the circumstances, quite alright.” He looks over at Wilbur. “You need to keep track of your body, alright? Let us know if you start feeling lightheaded.”

(What right does he have, to care? What right does  _ Wilbur _ have to care?)

Wilbur gives a noncommittal hum. He’s still holding Tubbo’s hand.

Neither of them let go.

* * *

An hour passes, then two. It’s torturously slow going, with the smoke and smoldering ruins. They hardly even made a dent in the rubble before Skeppy returned with Bad in tow, both of them carrying a good dozen diamond and netherite tools between them to help. Things go smoother after that.

George and Sapnap fight the hardest of them all. The lack of tools in the beginning don’t phase them, and once tools arrive, they take them with bruised, bleeding fingers and work even harder. Quackity wants to step in and try to make the friends take care of their own health a bit, but he isn’t sure what to say. Ant and Bad are closer to them, anyways, and George’s distinctive snapping at Ant to “Screw off” when he’d dared suggest a break from the smoke effectively warded him off. 

It wasn’t like the rest of them were doing much better, either. The White House was three stories tall and made of solid stone; though there were multiple pores in the debris, there were huge chunks of stone and andesite to mine away and move to make human-sized holes in the rubble. 

And then there was the smoke. It was all-encompassing, a heavy, sharp sting that was ever present in his lungs, even through the mask. It makes his eyes water and burn, and everyone with a sense of self-preservation has to take a break every half hour or so and leave to clear their lungs.

“Ready?” Bad calls. Quackity half-grunts, half coughs in affirmation as George makes a similar sound. The three of them are positioned at the top of the former White House, all on one side of a particularly large chunk of andesite, twice their size. “HEAVE!”

In a symphony of grunts and pulls, they’re pulling up and pushing out with all of their might. For a moment, the stone stubbornly refuses to budge. Then, with a low, moaning creak, it shifts. Quackity and the other two, sensing the moment of weakness, push even harder, and it topples over in a thunderous  _ crash _ that shakes the ground. 

Quackity stands there for a moment, heaving for breath. He needs to take a break soon; he’s coughing more and more, his cloth mask rapidly drying, only replenished by his own sweat. He looks down, where the andesite has landed and settles at the bottom, and then his gaze shifts to the man standing at the base of the rubble, in a fairly cleared-out section. Schlatt hasn’t put himself to much of the same hard labor as the rest of his citizens, instead opting to be the one stepping back and directing them to the sports that looked the most structurally weak. It was a good plan, but part of Quackity couldn’t help but feel angry, just a bit, that he’d opted out from the heavywork. Again.

Schlatt met his eyes. There was worry there, as was expected, but it seemed… off. Quackity binked, confused. What could be off about worry?

A rough hacking interrupted his thought process, and Quackity turned around in worry. George has doubled over, hands over his masked mouth. He’s coughing, which wouldn’t be unusual except he’s doubling over, falling to his knees,  _ he’s not breathing _ —

Quackity lets out a shout, rushing over his friend just as he collapses onto his hands and knees, catching him with a grunt. George shifts a bit in his arms, obviously almost out of it, and right when Quackity is about to  _ really _ scream for help, he makes one last, shuddering wheeze, and then sucks in a long breath. He coughs after that breath, too, but it’s lighter, more like the ones they were all suffering from. 

“George?” Quackity asked, waving a hand in front of his friend’s eyes. “You alright, man?”

George doesn’t answer, moving about a bit before his hands go to his mask. Before Quackity can stop him, he’s pulled it down, exposing himself to the pure, smoky air. The vice president is about to protest and put it back on when he notices a colored stain on the white fabric (made from Sapnap’s overshirt, willingly sacrificed).

It’s red. Blood.

“What happened?” Bad demands, falling to his knees helplessly, trying to figure out what had just occurred.

“He’s coughing up blood,” Quackity said softly. “He needs to leave, now.”

Bad looks over at him, pale, and nods. Even though his checkered black-and-white scarf is covering most of his face, Quackity can practically see how his mouth is turning into a thin, weighted line. 

“Wha, no,” George slurs, then coughs again. There are footsteps behind him, and Quackity glances behind him to see Sapnap, more terrified than even when he’d heard the news about Dream, rushing towards them. 

Bad nods at Quackity once he returns to gaze at him, a silent message passing between them. He nods back, then stands up, pulling George so he has one arm around his shoulders. Sapnap is saying something in the background, but Quackity can hardly even discern what he’s saying, his breath and muscles protesting the added weight. As Bad’s voice joins Sapnap’s, he carefully maneuvers down to the ground below. George, for all his fighting to stay earlier, doesn’t protest as he’s guided down and away from his best friend’s burial site.

It’s a long, taxing trek to the makeshift camp they’ve set up, back the entrance where they'd first place their horses. Skeppy and Purpled, on break, were sitting under a tarp, sucking on Skeppy’s store of Jolly Rancher to try and bring some relief to their sore throats (one of the many things Quackity had learned today was that hard candy could help soothe an inflamed throat). Fundy is sitting on a makeshift stool, carefully measuring out precise measurements of nether wart and blaze powder for the brewing stand sitting on a particularly large chunk of stone.

“Fundy!” Quackity calls out, drawing all three’s attention. Skeppy stands up in a flash, his netherite pickaxe clattering to the ground, but while he certainly is just as surprised and worried, Fundy is slower to react, carefully setting down his potion agreements, only springing into action once he is in no danger of harming them.

“Smoke inhalation?” Fundy asks, and when he receives a nod, ‘tsk’s. “Knew those two were putting themselves in danger.” He turns down to George. “Look at what you’ve done! Now you’re completely out of the rescue effort!”

That line seems to draw George out of his thoughts, and horror flashes across his face.

“What?!” He exclaims. It sounds like it’s supposed to be a shout, but it comes out little more than a tired wheeze. “No, I only need a few minutes — ” 

“Before you get yourself killed and we have  _ another  _ issue on our hands!” Fundy cuts him off. He reaches out, taking George with hands much gentler than his words. Quakcity sighs in relief at the lessened weight. Skeppy walks up to him, nodding and clapping him on the shoulder.

“You go take you break, now,” he offers. “I’ll go and make sure that Sapnap comes back before we have another George situation, alright?” 

Quackity can only find it in himself to nod, not even protesting as Skeppy dons his mask as disappearing into the foggy smoke. He goes and sits down on the piece of rubble Skeppy had been using as Fundy takes care of George, and grabs a water bottle. Half of the thing is gone in a single go, and he continues to nurse it as the liquid soothes his parched throat.

There’s the crinkling of plastic, and then a “Jolly Rancher?” from Purpled. Quackity looks up to see the hard candy being presented to him, then chuckles a bit and takes it. Watermelon, his favorite. 

“You know me so well,” he says. Purpled shoots him a wry smile, and Quackity gives the same tired smile back, popping the candy into his mouth and grabbing another sip of water. 

Even though the SMP had been experiencing quite an Indian Summer over the last few days, the rays of the sun feel nice and cool over Quackity’s skin as he finally removes his mask, sinking into his makeshift seat and letting his muscles relax. He hopes that they can find Tubbo soon; he’s not sure how long they can keep this rescue effort up, and even if they have air, which is a generous supposition, he doubted they could survive the night.

He and Purpled sit in silence, listening to George’s labored breath and occasional protest as Fundy scolds him quietly, giving him a potion of regeneration to drink. 

Then there’s a clatter of hooves, coming towards Manberg. Quackity looks up, and then nearly spits out his half-eaten Jolly Rancher in surprise. That’s—that’s Tommy’s signature skeleton horse.

His eyes move upwards, and there is Tommyinnit, the boy himself, riding towards them. He’s too far away for Quackity to make out his features, but slightly behind him he can see Technoblade, riding a living steed, only a few meters behind him.

Purpled stands up, his things falling down with a clatter, as he pulls out a crossbow. But Quackity is quick to put a hand on his shoulder, shaking his head. They were all exhausted and low on supplies, and with Techno there any battle would be lost far before it had begun. He turns and jerks his head at Fundy, and the fox hybrid nods, taking George by the arm and leading the half-conscious man away.

Quackity exits the tarp’s shade, narrowing his eyes against the glare of the sun as the two Pogtopians approach. Was this their plan? Did Wilbur decide to sacrifice himself to make Manberg so weak that Tommy and Techno only had to waltz in and take it?

“Quackity!” Tommy calls once he’s close enough, bringing his horse to a sudden stop and prompting it to rear up, hooves almost catching Quackity in the head and forcing him to step back. “What the hell happened here?!”

Quackity pauses, surprised at the tone of voice. While both Tommy and Techno are in full armor and weapons (Techno, in particular, is terrifying in how his full netherite getup makes him look in the noonday light), he sounds… scared. Frightened.

It doesn’t excuse what’s just happened. 

“You tell me what the hell just happened!” Quackity snaps, trying to pull on the confidence that made Schlatt so intimidating. “And why your leader just blew up our country!”

“What?” Tommy snaps, dismounting. Silently, Technoblade does the same, coming up behind him. Quackity doesn’t miss the not-so-subtle threat of the piglin hybrid’s hand over his crossbow, which has been noticeably modified. “No, he didn’t. Wilbur isn’t even here!”

“Get off it,” Purpled snaps. He hasn’t raised his crossbow, but in a miniature of Techno has also placed his hand on it menacingly. “You know full well there was supposed to be a peace meeting today.”

Tommy blinks at that, turning his eyes to the younger teenager in surprise, and Quackity couldn’t help but echo the same sentiment. What? Why wouldn’t Tommy have known about the meeting?

“We weren’t told about any meeting,” Techno said in a low, slow voice. He’s kept his place just behind Tommy’s shoulder, but even Quackity can see how he stiffens at the news. “Wilbur said he was going out hunting for the day. He’s in the forest.”

“No he isn’t,” Purpled shoots back. “Tubbo was talking for  _ days _ about the meeting; he’s the one who convinced Wilbur to do it.”

Suddenly, Tommy goes very still. 

“Quackity,” he says. “Where is Tubbo?”

A long stretch of silence goes between them. Quackity finds his mouth suddenly dry, and he struggles to find the right words. Despite their national alignments and political disagreements, Tommy and Tubbo’s friendship has never really been questioned. How is he supposed to break this kind of news to the kid?

“Tubbo was with Wilbur in the White House,” he says quietly. “When the bombs went off. He’s buried in the rubble.”

Tommy narrows his eyes at him, gritting his teeth. Without another word, he dashes off towards the center of Manberg, ignoring the smoke and debris blocking his way. 

“Purpled,” Quackity says, putting a hand on the kids’ shoulder. “Go after him and make sure he doesn’t get into any trouble.”

Purpled nods, tearing his eyes away from Techno. He finally puts his crossbow back into his inventory, replacing it with a pickaxe, and runs off after the exile. Once he’s out of earshot, Quackity turns back to Techno, who hasn’t moved.

Fundy wouldn’t have gone far by now; Quackity is sure if he calls, the fox-hybrid will answer. But for now, he’s alone with the strongest pvp’er on the server, and he isn’t able to bluff like Purpled just did.

“You look like shit,” Techno says, his voice a low rumble. He hardly sounds affected by the situation, but he still seems very stiff. 

“Yeah,” Quackity breathes, looking down at himself. His clothes are certainly ruined; the soles of his tennis shoes are almost melted through in some spots from stepping on hot coals, his sleeves and pants are torn, and he can feel how his face and hair are caked with ash. To be fair, no one else who’d been in the search, aside from Schlatt, looks much better. “We’ve been looking for them.”

“What are you going to do about Wilbur?”

Quackity pauses at that, eyeing the hand that is carefully placed on the crossbow. 

“Schlatt has his orders,” he settles on.

Techno huffs, a large blast of air through his nostrils that Quackity can practically feel and has him involuntarily stepping back. With a swift movement, though, he’s taken his hand off his crossbow and removed his cloak. Quackity watches in shock as he takes that red cloak, the prized cloak he’s never seen Techno without, and tears a good chunk of it off. Then he does it again. He walks over the community water bucket they’d set out for the masks, and dunks both scraps in, tying one around his mouth and fastening the other to his waist. The rest of the cloak is discarded into his inventory if it were a leftover item.

“Well?” Techno asks, giving him a judgemental look. “Aren’t you coming?”

Quackity shakes himself out of his stupor as the piglin hybrid turns around and starts making his way towards where the White House used to be, pulling up his own mask and hurrying after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have never had so much fun writing a story before. Please let me know what you think below!


	3. Chapter 3

.... . .-. / - .... -

The rhythmic tapping is almost impossible to hear against the thundering of sounds around them. The falling of rocks and perhaps distant voices thudded painfully against his ears, making him wince and get distracted from Dream’s message.

“Wilbur?” For a moment, Tubbo’s voice is distant, and Wilbur has to concentrate in order to pull himself back to awareness.

“Just a sec,” he says quietly, forcing his brain to think. “‘Hear that?’ is what he said.”

“And what should we reply?” Tubbo prompts gently.

“...Y. You remember that?”

“Yeah, don’t worry.” 

Wilbur sighs in something resembling relief as Tubbo diligently taps out -.-- on the table wall/ceiling; he’s growing too tired for this. He wonders what those sounds they can hear are, whether it’s help or the rubble collapsing in on them. He cannot decide which one is better. 

.... ..- .-. - ...

Is it just him or are the taps growing more ragged, more difficult to understand? Is it Dream or is it him, finally feeling the effects of blood loss?

“‘Hurts’,” he translates. Maybe it was both. 

“Do you think he’ll last much longer?” Eret asks. Wilbur doesn’t answer; he figures that’s a mostly rhetorical question. Dream hasn’t exactly been forthcoming with how severe his injuries are, only that they are located on his head and shoulder and were fairly serious since he’d mentioned them at all.

“Maybe he won’t have to,” Tubbo muses, folding his hands hopefully as he looks up. “He can hear the rubble moving, same as us. “Help will be coming soon! Dream can get all the medical care he needs.” He pauses, glancing at his two companions. “All of us can. And—and then in a few weeks we’ll all be laughing like none of this ever happened.”

Eret chuckles a bit, looking down at the dirt, but doesn’t verbally respond. Wilbur, who is fighting off the sensation of floating away, doesn’t have the will to find the strength to. 

“You’re sweating a lot, Wil,” Tubbo says, suddenly leaning over him. The abrupt change makes Wilbur blink a few times in surprise. He puts a hand on his forehead. “And you’re clammy. The blood loss is definitely getting to you.” 

“Tell me something I don’t know,” Wilbur quipped, raising a wry eyebrow. Tubbo shakes his head, worrying his lower lip.

“There’s nothing you can do about him, Tubbo,” Eret says. “Like you said. Help will be coming soon enough.”

As if on cue, there’s a thunderous crash above them, then a jarring series of jerks and thuds follow, probably a large stone being thrown off. Tubbo jerks up, away from him, and Wilbur watches as he moves away, raising a hand to one of the pores in the rubble-filled wall.

“Fresh air!” He exclaims, face lighting up in such an expression of hope that Wilbur can’t help but smile at it. “Guys, I can feel fresh air! I’m gonna try yelling.” After a moment, he cups his hands around the pore, sucks in a breath, and then: “ _HELLO?!”_

The shout rings painfully against Wilbur’s ears, making him wince and move his arm to cover the one closest to the boy, but he doesn’t say anything. How long have they been down here, now? Hours? A day? It’s been too long and Tubbo needs to get out of here before hunger and thirst become an issue.

Tubbo pressed his ear to the hole, and from the way his face lights up he hears something. He cups his hands again, and shouts “ _DOWN HERE! WE’RE DOWN HERE!_ ” 

“Who is it?” Eret asks. Tubbo shushes him, clearly trying to listen.

“It’s Quackity!” He exclaims. “He’s pretty faint but a lot closer than he sounds.”

Wilbur lets out a long breath. If Quackity was there, so would George and Schlatt. And even though he’d been expecting them to be the first responders and the ones to find them, actually having it confirmed strikes something deep within him. Defeat, perhaps. Maybe acceptance. Probably something in between.

There are more thuds. Wilbur drifts a bit as the minutes tick on. The sounds get louder, and soon enough Tubbo isn’t shouting at the top of his lungs to be heard. He thinks he might even be hearing voices, far away and echoing in the distance. 

He doesn’t say anything to Tubbo. He knows what fate will meet him at the surface, knows what Tubbo would think of it, and settles on saying nothing about it at all. He can feel Eret’s gaze on him more than he sees it; somehow, the two have come to a nonverbal agreement to not talk to Tubbo about it. He’s gotten too caught up with the idea of rescue to think about the rest of them.

Good for him. Wilbur doesn’t want Tubbo to think about it. 

Dream will be well taken care of, once help arrives. George will see to that. Fundy and Quackity, even Schlatt, are all fond of Tubbo; he’s the safest out of the four of them. Niki, if no one else, will see to Eret’s safety, maybe take a look at the man’s legs and see what’s up with them. Would the injuries be permanent? Wilbur doesn’t know which he prefers.

And he… well. Death doesn’t sound too bad, in all honesty. He’d welcomed it before, when the White House had first come crashing down, and he’s alright with it now. Recovery from the respawn would take a long time, his body slowly reforming and having to relearn how to live, but he’d survive.

And after that? Would Tommy and Techno believe his story, after he’d lied to them?

No. No, they wouldn’t. Tommy had begged him not to do it, not to blow up Manberg, but in all honesty had no reason to believe that he wouldn’t do it. Wilbur _had_ been rather manipulative as of late. This would be the straw that broke the camel’s back for them, more likely than not. Techno… would be more tricky. He was all for anarchy; that was why he’d joined Pogtopia in the first place. But Wilbur would not be a strong ally in the weeks to come, recovering from a death as strong as the one he was about to experience. Would he leave, too, to cause chaos on his own?

Suddenly he thinks of Phil. Phil would not believe him, no, but despite the knowledge Wilbur closes his eyes and pretends he's a gangly teenager again, Phil’s arm wrapped sound his shoulders as he grins up at him. Wilbur, for a moment, pretends that Phil is proud of him. 

And then there’s a sharper, cracking sound. Tubbo’s shaking his shoulder ( _ow_ , when would he realize that hurt?), and Wilbur opens his eyes for a moment, only to snap them shut again. The light is blinding.

The light.

Wilbur takes a few moments to breathe, and then opens his eyes a sliver. Light is streaming in through a crack in the table, blindingly white after hours seeing only by enchanted armor. Tubbo is saying something, but he sounds so far away, like he was speaking through a far away tunnel.

There’s another, more distant, crack, and the light increases. He can feel splinters of wood bounce off and dig into his skin. The crack is now a decent-size hole, the size of maybe a baseball or two, and Wilbur can see the sky through it, streaked with black, yellow, and a light blue.

It’s pretty.

Tubbo is shaking him again, and his shoulder is throbbing with it, but the pain is growing further away by the second. Wilbur thinks he hears worry in the younger’s voice, a multitude of others joining him.

But Phil is whispering comforting words in his ear, urging him to sleep, to accept his fate as it comes. And after it all, after all the betrayals and running and paranoia and exhaustion…

He trusts Phil.

And so he goes to sleep.

* * *

By the time Quackity has his hatchet out, hacking at the splintered table underneath his feet, listening to Tubbo shouting at him from underneath it, it’s almost nighttime.

The day has been long, longer than he’s ever expected it to be when he went out to hunt with George that morning. It feels like that had been a week ago. His muscles ache and his head throbs, and his voice has developed a steady gravel-like undertone to it, probably from the smoke. 

Well, if there is a silver lining, the fires had finally gone out a few hours ago, and some strong winds a little after that had blown away the smoke. Finally, he’s been able to throw away his mask and breathe fairly clear air for the first time all day. 

Tommy is right at his side, taking his enchanted netherite sword (expecting battle, he had not brought a pickaxe), and sticking it into the crack Quackity had made, using the nether-forged blade as a lever to widen the crack into a small hole, maybe a little bigger than a fist. Only Schlatt had really protested the Pogtopian’s arrival, but Tommy and Techno weren’t about to leave and they _were_ heavily armed, so in the end they had given in.

It’s almost nice having Tommy at his side once again, if not for the situation. He’s missed his friendship with the kid, and his single-minded determination to get to Tubbo is admirable. He hasn’t taken a break, same as Sapnap, who is working on the other half of the table, where Dream is.

The four had been extremely lucky. Quackity isn’t sure how, but somehow they'd all made it under the table when the explosions had gone off. Even then, a huge chunk of the ceiling had come crashing down, splitting the table into two halves and separating Dream from the rest. It was nothing short of a miracle that they were still alive. 

“Tubbo!” Tommy shouts, immediately dropping to his hands and knees once the hole is big enough, eyes wide and full of hope. 

“Tommy!” Comes back, clear, safe, and _alive_. Quackity’s shoulders slump from a tension he didn’t even know he’d had, and he too, sinks to his knees, craning his neck to try and get a good look at the kid.

Well. If they looked bad, covered in soot, sweat and bruises from working all day, Tubbo looks even worse. There’s a cut over his eye, and though it’s mostly scabbed over by now, there’s a bunch of dried blood on his face that he clearly hasn’t tried to scrub off. He’s missing his suit jacket, and the white undershirt is stained with dust and blood and torn at several different points.

There isn’t enough room for him to stand up straight, so he’s sitting criss-cross on the floor. He looks up and smiles at them weakly, forced. 

His hands are drenched in blood. 

“Tubbo!” Tommy repeats, horror instead of relief seeping into his voice. “Are you alright?!”

“Guys, I’m really glad to see you, but—” Tubbo’s expression falls into a pained worry. “Please, help Wilbur. He’s dying.”

Quackity doesn’t move for a moment, even as Tommy springs into action, slamming his sword into the crack and levering it. He grunts, and then the wood splinters, spraying bits of dark oak everywhere. 

Wilbur is down there. Quackity can’t deny the anger that rises in his chest at the thought of the former president of L’Manberg, a long-lost cause lost to jealousy and his own mind. Wilbur had detonated this place, and then Tubbo had been stuck with him in the same crevice for a little over twelve hours. Had Wilbur even revealed that it had been him? Tubbo certainly sounded a little too worried about someone who’d just blown up his home and tried to kill him. 

A cry, mixed with something akin to triumph or relief, fills the air. Quackity turns around to see that it’s Sapnap, holding a hand, only part of the arm visible through the rubble. The vice president watches as George, who’d returned a few hours ago, worked with Antfrost and Bad to remove the rubble, tearing off bits of the other side of the table and mining away stone and andesite. A few moments later, a tuft of light brown hair comes into view.

And, well, Quackity keeps on seeing new highs for how terrible someone can look. The entire right side of his head is caked in blood, less than half of his mask remaining, hanging by a few remaining threads of it’s strap around his neck. His arm looks broken near the shoulder, hanging at an odd angle.

The world’s admin is conscious, though Quackity isn’t sure of how aware of his surroundings he is. Eternally careful of his wounds, Dream’s four friends pile around him in exclamations of relief and worry. George has attached himself to his friends’ uninjured arm, running a hand through Dream’s hair, as if in wonder that he’s there and not some ghostly apparition. Fundy runs up to them, bandages and potions in hand, shooing them back a few steps so he can do some field work on their first victim.

“Hey! You just gonna stand around, Big Q?” Tommy shoots at him from behind, making Quackity jump and turn around. Purpled has joined them, and the two teenagers are shooting him judgemental looks.

“Y-yeah, of course,” he stammers, and takes out his axe, motioning for the two kids to stand back. Once they’ve done so, he sucks in a long breath, and then swings with all of his might. 

The dark oak table nearly shatters, raining dust down on Tubbo, who starts coughing. But with the table practically in two, the three are able to yank off one of the pieces, opening up perhaps half of the little cavern to the outside world. Tommy is there in an instant, and then the two are embracing and Tommy is crying, and Purpled is there too, standing back just a bit but placing a hand on Tubbo’s arm and asking him if he needs Fundy or a regeneration potion.

Quackity peers down into the now illuminated darkness, and suddenly develops a new respect for Manberg’s secretary of state. The space is tiny, and he realizes with a lurch of his stomach that it also reeks of blood, smoke, and sweat. 

Eret is the first person he sees. The king is half-covered in rubble and dusted in a thin layer of ash, his sunglasses long gone, and his pure white eyes blinking steadily up at him.

Then… Wilbur Soot. Tubbo hadn’t exaggerated when he said the man was on the verge of death. He’s lying face-up, the ground around him stained with blood from an unseen wound (the back?). He’s pale, too, and clearly unconscious. 

“Nice to finally see you,” Eret says, and Quackity jumps again.

“You too,” he replies weakly, unsure of what else to say. “We’ll get you out of here.”

“Get Wilbur first,” Eret shoots back within a moment. “He needs immediate medical care.”

Quackity bites back a “you look like you need care, too!” but hesitates. Schlatt had ordered him to make sure Wilbur was to die, and to die in such a way that his respawn would be as long and as painful as possible. While Quackity definitely wasn’t against that—the smouldering rubble was testament to how the man deserved much more than a single respawn—he suddenly finds himself loath to kill the man in front of Eret and Tubbo, who clearly don’t know the whole story.

That moment of hesitation costs him.

There’s a flash of netherite armor, and Techno’s jumped over the edge, landing lightly on his feet and kneeling over Wilbur’s prone form. His hand flashes, and Quackity blinks in surprise as none other than a potion of healing emerges from his inventory. He’s surprised Techno has brought it and was willing to use it on Wilbur of all people. Potions of healing were composed of difficult to obtain materials, even for a potion, and took a full week to brew. Techno likely only had a few, for the most dire of situations. 

The fact that Techno was using it on Wilbur was a bad sign.

“Techno, I can’t let you do that,” Quackity says, trying to ignore how his voice shakes. He grips the handle of his axe tighter as Techno opens the bottle of healing. “Techno, that man’s a terrorist! He needs to be punished!”

There’s a gasp behind him, likely Tubbo, and Eret looks up at Quackity in confusion.

“See,” Techno drawls, completely ignoring Quackity’s threat. He opens Wilbur’s mouth and begins pouring the potion of healing into it, massaging the former president’s throat to make sure he swallows. “You’re saying this as if you think I care.”

“What?!” Tubbo shouts from behind, and there’s a scuffling behind him. “No! No, don’t hurt him!”

Quackity turns around a bit. Purpled is holding Tubbo back by the arms, as the boy is clearly struggling to get over to Wilbur. Tommy is just standing there, clearly torn between wanting to help but also being clearly aware of what Wilbur had done. Skeppy has arrived as well, Schlatt just over his shoulder, both giving Techno very menacing looks.

“Tubbo,” Quackity says, loathe to be the one to reveal the truth but doing it anyways. “Wilbur was the one who did this. He set off a bunch of TNT underneath Manberg.”

“No he didn’t!”

“Look, I get that you think you know this man, but he’s been threatening to do this for the last week! Tommy saw him get the supplies!”

“He is right, Tubbo,” Tommy says quietly, voice so torn Quackity feels bad for the kid, being stuck with an anarchist and a madman who he thought he could trust. “He did do it.”

“No!” Tubbo shoots back, voice trembling. “He saved my life!”

It was clear that the kid wasn’t about to see reason. Quackity looked over at Skeppy and Schlatt. The latter just gave him a nod, walking towards Purpled, while Skeppy stepped forwards, drawing his sword. 

“Techno,” Skeppy said, voice more serious than Quackity had ever dreamed it could be. “You know me. Step. Back. I will call Bad and the others over and you can’t fight all of us at once.” 

Still, Techno ignores him. He’s moved his attention from Wilbur’s injuries to one of his legs, which is pinned underneath some rubble. With a grunt, he levers it up with his axe, freeing the limb and pulling it into the open air. His cape, torn and dirty, is pulled out of his inventory, and he carefully raises Wilbur’s back to slide it underneath him.

And despite everything, Quackity can’t help but wince. Most of the backing of Wilbur’s netherite chestplate had been blown off, and the exposed skin underneath was a disturbingly charred black and bloody red. The healing potion Techno had administered seems to have been working—he could see the tell-tale movements of the skin healing—but still… ouch. Tubbo seemed to have been trying to help when they’d been trapped; his suit coat is plastered to the ground where Wilbur had been lying, drenched in blood and dead skin.

Skeppy is less bothered, though how Quackity isn’t sure. He steps forward and levels his sword at the back of Techno’s neck.

“Surrender him,” He demands, eyes ablaze. “Or I will kill you, and the respawn won’t be pretty.” 

For a moment, Techno doesn’t move. The scene is silent, save for Tubbo’s quiet grunts and whines as he tries to get out of Purpled’s grip.

Then Techno tightens his grip on his axe and swings, throwing everyone into a flurry of action. Techno’s swing forces Skeppy to step back and block the axe, and Quackity rushes forwards to go and help. His axe then connects with Techno’s, whose eyes are alight with a fire that Quackity’s never seen in the man before.

Faintly, he can hear Tommy shouting something and Sapnap’s voice carrying over the wind, but he’s too focused trying to keep his head to really pay any attention. Techno hasn’t gained his reputation for being the best pvp’er of all time for no reason, and even protecting an invalid, he has Skeppy and Quackity on the defensive. He fights chiefly with his axe, but he must be ambidextrous, because at one point he has his shield equipped, blocking a strike from Skeppy, and the next that shield is a trident, thrown at Sapnap as he tries to enter the fray. It catches the man in the arm and returns to Techno’s hands bloody, just in time to strike at Quackity. 

There’s an arrow at one point, and Quackity risks a glance to see that it’s Purpled, who’s left Tubbo to take up a position a few meters away and fire his crossbow. He can see Tommy standing frozen out of the corner of his eye, but Tubbo is nowhere to be seen.

Well, he can’t dwell on that, because Techno’s trident is now a sword and Quackity hurriedly raises his axe to block it. Simultaneously blocking a strike from Skeppy, he twists his sword underneath the head of Quackity’s axe and yanks, forcing Quackity to let go and using the momentum to toss the weapon to the side. Defenseless, Quackity can do nothing but watch as Techno turns all of his attention to Skeppy. Deflecting another strike from the increasingly panicking man, Techno crouches down low underneath his arms, sweeping his legs out from under him, and grabs Skeppy and he falls, throwing the man’s sword to the side and carefully raising his own netherite blade to his neck.

“Hey, Techno!” Schlatt’s voice rings out over the crowd, and Quackity turns around. Then pauses, blood running cold.

Schlatt is there, holding a cold knife around Tubbo’s throat. The poor boy looks terrified, forced to his knees and his arms pulled back, frantically trying and failing to pull away from the silver blade pressing into his neck. 

It’s a bluff. It has to be. 

“Tubbo!” Tommy shouts. He is starting to lose it, that was clear. His hands were shaking as he summoned his sword, pointing it at the president. Purpled nearly drops his crossbow in surprise, eyes darting between Techno and Schlatt. “L-let him go! He hasn’t done anything to you, you bastard!”

“Oh, yes he has,” Schlatt growls. When Tommy takes a step forward, he adds: “Oh, I wouldn’t suggest doing that. Tubbo here knew exactly what he was getting into when he went to the meeting today, didn’t he?”

“S-Schlatt?” Tubbo asks, whose voice is suddenly so small. “I-I don’t know—”

Schlatt jerks him backwards, cutting a small red line into his neck. “Shut up.” He turns his attention back to Techno. Skeppy has stopped struggling, seeming to realize that he was only making things worse for himself, though his eyes are wide and pleading when they meet Quackity’s. “I don’t think you want your little spy dead, don’t you?”

“ _Skeppy!_ ” There’s more pairs of feet, and Bad and George come into view. The former instantly takes out his own crossbow, aiming at Techno. “Let him go!”

Techno doesn’t acknowledge their presence except with a flicker of the eyes, instead focusing on Schlatt as he continues to speak. 

“You see, everyone, Tubbo here has been acting as a little _spy_ , all this time. What a surprise, right? After _everything_ —” he presses a little harder. “I’ve done for him, too. He’s been feeding information to Pogtopia, meeting Wilbur in the middle of the night. I’ll admit, I was only suspicious, but… well, you were oddly reluctant to be in Manberg today, weren’t you?”

“What? He was just planning a day out with me!” Purpled protests. “Please, Mr. President, he’s not a traitor, please let him go.”

“I guess that decision lies on Mr. Blade over here.” Schlatt says. “What do you choose? Tubbo, Tommy, and Skeppy’s life, and probably Wilbur’s and your own, or just Wilbur? I know you’re a smart man. Make the right choice.”

Tommy is frozen, surrounded by the enemy. Purpled is torn. Bad and George are too far away. Skeppy is helpless.

Quackity is terrified.

Techno snorts, holding Skeppy tighter, closer to the blade closing in on his neck. 

“See,” he says, still in that _monotone voice_ , how Quackity was starting to _hate_ that voice. “The problem here is that you’re operating under the assumption that I value everyone’s lives equally.”

“Techno,” Tommy says, so worried for his friend and sounding so defeated. “Please. Just let them have Wilbur. It isn’t worth it.”

“I… will have to disagree with that,” says a new voice, tired and exhausted but full of resolve. Everyone’s attention shifts to the newcomer, and Quackity can’t hide his surprise when he sees Dream standing there.

He’s clearly still injured, distinctly favoring his broken right arm and covered in the blood and dust of the explosion, but Fundy’s potions seemed to have given him enough strength to brush off his friends’ concerns and make his way to Wilbur’s side, holding his trusty netherite axe in his left hand. He shares a glance with Technoblade. Nods at him. Then takes a defensive position in front of Wilbur.

“I know Wilbur,” he says, voice carrying over the scene. “I’ve been both his enemy and his ally. I gave him the TNT to rig Manberg. And I know that he did not press the button.”

“If not him, then who?!” Quackity bursts, unsure if he’s saying the right thing but feeling the need to intervene. “Who would have done this?”

“Well, I think we all know.” It’s disconcerting, being able to see Dream’s face. His eyes are so green, so full of the fire of an admin who has been wronged. “Who else would gain from killing the figurehead of the rebellion against him, the leaders of the two other nations on the SMP, and the spy in his midst?”

The implications are clear. 

Quackity will not believe it. 

“What are you trying to do?” Schlatt laughs. “Blame me for this?! I think we both know that won’t work. Why would I destroy my own land?”

“The same reason you’d run for president for a nation you had known for less than a day. It’s a shame, really. Your plan would have worked if Wilbur didn’t have a good sense of smell.”

Techno adjusts his grip on Skeppy, firm and never wavering. 

Tubbo looks so scared.

There’s a whistle in the air.

An arrow is in Schlatt’s neck. 

Everything seems to slow down. Quackity watches in silent horror as the blood begins to flow. Schlatt’s arms drop, and Tubbo, only centimeters away from being hit himself, lurches away with a sob. Schlatt’s hands go up his suit, rapidly turning red, to his wounded neck. He tries to say something, but nothing comes out but a pained gurgle.

He falls. Lies there for a few minutes, bleeding out onto the ground. Then his body disappears into smoke, off to the void that falls in between death and life.

No one moves to help him.

Quackity turns, slowly, to the only person who has a ranged weapon out.

He’s never seen Purpled look so scared and angry. His crossbow is still raised in his steady hands, aimed at the spot where Schlatt had disappeared, as if he were about to rise from the grave and strike him down where he stood for daring to kill him.

Tubbo is crying louder, mumbling variations of “he didn’t do it” and “I’m sorry” into Tommy’s shirt. Technoblade lets go of Skeppy, who jerks away from him and moves towards Bad, who meets him halfway and embraces him tightly. Dream and Techno share a look before George and Sapnap reach the former, all indignant and worried and asking “why in the world did you do that?!” After a few moments, Techno turns away from the scene, bending down and picking up Wilbur bridal style. Wrapped in the red cloak, the former president looks almost like a child.

Quackity thinks it’s ironic that he’s slept through all of this.

Eret coughs awkwardly, and Quackity realizes that he’s still trapped, half underneath the rubble and forgotten in the commotion.

“Hey,” Quackity says, trying and failing to smile. “You need some help?”

“Yeah,” Eret sighs, looking more and more tired by the second. “Get me out of here.”

_JSchlatt was slain by Purpled_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it! Ch 4 will be a much shorter epilogue, and will come out Friday morning. I hope you all liked this story as much as I did, and please let me know what you think below!


	4. Chapter 4

It’s cold.

The air wraps around him, chilly and nipping at his exposed skin. For Wilbur, it’s comforting. The heat brings back suffocating memories, of explosions and burning and Tubbo’s tear-stained face hovering over his own. Better the cold, which stung just enough to remind him that yes, he was awake and yes, this was real. The cold did not lie to him, not like the alluring heat, a temptress waiting for him at the highest point of day.

It’s a long, chilly walk from Pogtopia to what remains of Manberg.

The clean up efforts haven’t begun in earnest yet. The land is just sitting there, a half-smouldering pile of rubble and ash. There’s some tents and simple wooden structures on the far side, where Wilbur assumes Quackity and his citizens are living until they can return to their homeland. From what Wilbur’s heard, the guy’s doing pretty well, all things considered. He hears Niki, Ponk, Purpled and Karl are a lot more, well—not happier, not while their homes and livelihoods are destroyed, but more open.

For Wilbur, it’s almost satisfying, seeing the place razed to the ground. Despite it all a small part of him had earnestly wanted to push that button, and even through all the trauma and regret part of him smiles at the scene laid out before him. The other part of him wants to cry. He is not sure which he prefers.

He settles for sitting on a nearby hill and just watching, for a little while.

The Indian Summer of late October had lasted into early November, and then had finally given way to winter. Now the wind is snappish and sharp, and ruffles his hair around in the particularly strong gusts. Soon the temperatures will fall even more, and perhaps by early December they’ll start seeing snow.

It’s been five days. Wilbur hasn’t seen anyone but Techno and Tubbo during the three days he’d been awake for. He’s heard the news of the newest divide in the SMP, over whether or not he actually pushed the button. Antfrost and Skeppy are rather vocal on the opinion that he did, Quackity and Eret the opposite. Techno thinks they might come to blows over him. Wilbur hates that.

He hates it because the truth doesn’t really matter to him anymore. Wilbur may or may not have struck the match, but he had placed down the firewood, ripe for a bonfire. 

Part of him regrets it. Part of him doesn’t.

Techno is worried about him. Well, he was before, and after this sequence of events he’s grown even more so. When Wilbur had been bed-bound for the first four days, drifting in and out of consciousness for the first two, and then struggling to reclaim control of his back, Techno had been there every step of the way. Almost hovering, really. Wilbur found that he didn’t really mind it. It was nice, honestly, having someone who would protect him for once. Techno was a much better brother than he realized. Wilbur honestly couldn’t thank him enough for letting him go through with his current plan without too much of a fight.

And then Tubbo. Sweet little Tubbo, 16 years old and far too young for any of this. Hell,  _ Wilbur  _ feels too young for this, and he’s well on his way to his mid-twenties and feels two decades older than that. He can’t look at the kid much any more. Too many memories, too many mistakes. Tubbo has it so easy, so willing to let bygones be bygones, but Wilbur is not so forgiving. He looks at Tubbo and suddenly he’s back in that cave, full of regrets and certain he’s about to die and lose the last few scraps of values he has left. Perhaps Tubbo’s noticed that Wilbur doesn’t like seeing him, because he hasn’t dropped by in the last day or so.

He hasn’t seen Tommy at all. Tubbo just says he’s conflicted. Wilbur knows it’s because of what happened in the weeks leading up to the meeting in Manberg. Lies and manipulations, brothers to allies to acquaintances thrown about the land and kept together by circumstance. What are they? Did Wilbur press the button, or did he not? Let him brood over those questions in his vacation house. The kid needs some time to figure things out, Wilbur thinks.

Wilbur needs some time to figure things out, too.

He stands, wincing at how the newly-reformed and almost-healed muscles clench and contract in protest, then begins to make his way down the mountain. He leaves the forest, stepping slowly and carefully down the decline. Then he walks past Manberg, catching the barest hint of voices in the wind, and ignores them, moving into the SMP’s territory.

Manberg falls behind him, and civilization takes its place. Wilbur sticks to the shadows, avoiding the lights and main paths throughout the world. He skirts around the community house, past Eret’s castle. He does linger by that area for a moment though, standing outside the walls.

He hasn’t heard much about Eret since he’d passed out five days ago. He wonders how he was feeling, if the potions had been able to fix the break in his spine that had made his legs go numb. Magic was iffy about those sorts of things. Wilbur had met blinded players before, in his travels, and he considered himself lucky that Tubbo’s half a healing potion had worked on his ears and that the initial explosions hadn’t rendered him deaf. 

His ears still ring though, from time to time. 

Wilbur shakes himself and moves on. He leaves Eret’s castle behind and finds himself looking up at the patchwork of walls that surrounded spawn. He circles it a bit before finding the hole in the side, and ducks in underneath it, walking through the spruce trees to an unassuming spot in a small clearing, marked only by a 3 by 3 meter pattern of stone bricks.

It was here, so long ago, that he’d initially spawned into the world. Bright eyes, a bounce in his step, leaving the winds and rains and cold of his past behind him.

The Dream SMP had not been the escape he’d thought it would be, but Wilbur had realized and accepted that long ago, when he’d signed the declaration of independence and assumed authority of the fledgling nation of L’Manberg. He’d thought giving up that escape had been worth it.

It hadn’t. 

Anyways. There’s someone sitting at the base of one of the trees across the clearing. Wilbur squints to see through the half-moon’s light and realizes it’s Purpled, who has his crossbow out and is using his knife to carve something into the expertly crafted wood. He’s focused on his little project, and hasn’t noticed Wilbur yet. He could leave right now, turn around and walk away like nothing’s ever happened.

“What has you out here at this time of night?” He calls out instead.

He has questions he wants the kid to answer before the night is out.

Purpled jerks up, dropping his knife and gripping his crossbow tightly, but he doesn’t aim it at him, and that gives Wilbur the courage to walk the few meters across the clearing and the spawn blocks over to him.

“Nothin’,” he says, in such a perfect recreation of Tubbo when he’s lying that it makes Wilbur pause. Must be a teenager thing. “Almost didn’t recognize you, Wilbur,” he adds, obviously trying for a more lighthearted statement.

Wilbur shrugs. He’s wearing one of his old outfits, a black leather jacket over a white shirt that fades to gray on the bottom, along with dark jeans and tennis shoes. The outfit feels… off, so different from his L’Manberg uniform and the threadbare trenchcoat from the past. It’s not something the kid would have seen him wear before. He sits down against the same tree Purpled’s leaning against, just close enough that he can see the kid out of the corner of his eyes while looking straight ahead. 

“What have you been up to?” He asks. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

Weeks, maybe months. Wilbur’s never been particularly close to the kid, or even talked to him outside of a few passing comments. But he’d grown close to Tubbo after the election, close enough that he’d fought side-by-side with Tommy to get him out of the rubble of the White House.

Or at least, that’s what Techno tells him.

Purpled doesn’t answer him for a few moments. Wilbur turns around and watches as he picks up his knife. Wilbur has to repress a violent flinch, and even then he’s noticeably tense as Purpled continues in his carvings.

“Nothin’,” he answers after a while, the forced air between his lips and the way at which he strikes at the wood saying otherwise. “What ‘bout you?”

“In Pogtopia. Recovering from injuries and stuff. Can’t sleep on my back anymore, which kind of sucks.”

“How’s Tubbo doing?”

Wilbur blinks in surprise. He had been expecting to be the one to ask that question. 

“He’s… alright. Shaken up but not much besides some bad bruising. Haven’t you seen him?”

Purpled doesn’t say anything, just shakes his head silently. Wilbur watches him for a few seconds, then re-evaluates his approach.

“Was that the first time you killed someone?”

A nod. He’s stopped carving his crossbow.

“You’re scared what’s going to happen to you when he respawns.”

Another nod, more stiff and jerky. Wilbur sighes. He hadn’t expected to be comforting a kid at this time of night. He’d expected his journey to be quick, and then he’d be off without a word.

Well, if there’s one thing Wilbur knows, it’s having blood on his hands. Talking about murder is one of the few things he’s able to do nowadays, ironically enough.

“Killing someone is a serious thing, Purpled,” he begins, slow in his speech as he tries to choose the right words. “Respawning is painful in any situation, and you risk permadeath, which is why we resort to it only in the most dire of circumstances.” He leaves a pause for Purpled to speak. When he doesn’t respond, Wilbur continues: “So why  _ did  _ you raise your crossbow and put an arrow in Schlatt’s neck, Purpled? What made you think it was necessary? I’m not saying the choice was right or wrong; I just want to hear your reasoning.” In the end, he was genuinely curious. When Techno had told him, Wilbur hadn’t believed him for a solid day.

Purpled sniffles, gripping the crossbow like it’s the only thing grounding him to reality.

“ _ I don’t know _ ,” he whispers. “I don’t know! I totally believed him; I thought—I  _ knew _ —you’d pressed the button. I’d worked with him. I’d followed his orders even when he was mean about it. But then… but then he took Tubbo and threatened him as a spy and I didn’t know who to believe anymore but—” he pauses. Takes a deep, shaky breath. “But. I was so  _ angry _ . I’d worked so hard to save Tubbo’s life and Schlatt and Dream and Techno were just playing  _ games _ with it to try and get you and…” another pause, then lifts his shoulders in the semblance of a shrug. “Then my crossbow was in the opposite direction and Schlatt was dead.”

Wilbur, in all honesty, doesn’t really know what to say to that. Fits of anger are more Tommy’s thing, and yet what Purpled is describing is something entirely different. A quieter type of anger.

A colder type of anger.

“I think that’s a perfectly valid reason to kill someone,” Wilbur says after a while, making his reasoning up as he goes. “I mean, he was threatening to kill your friend.”

“I was being stupid. Could have taken out Techno and gotten the whole thing over with, or aimed for somewhere else.”

Wilbur can’t hide a scoff. “You think too highly of yourself. Techno would have seen that arrow coming while shooting it was still a thought in your head. And if Schlatt had lived he would have made sure you went through hell for going against him.”

“He still will.”

“I doubt it. Dream and Techno won’t let him. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a ban waiting for him once he respawns.”

Another lull in the conversation. Wilbur picks at the grass.

“Why are you here?” Purpled asks.

“Why are you?”

“It’s quiet here. I can be alone without people looking at me.”

Wilbur can relate to that, so he thinks ‘ _ screw it _ ’ and is honest. “I’m leaving.”

Purpled freezes, then turns to him. “What?”

Wilbur shrugs, picking up another blade of grass and peeling it. “There’s… too much for me here. I need to figure things out. I got too caught up in all this; too caught up in my own head. I need to go and air things out,without having other people interfering with that.”

“Where are you going?”

He shrugs. “Dunno. Probably some uninhabited world with some glitch or the other that’s prevented it from getting claimed. Might hop around a bit. Settle down, if it’s calm enough.”

Purpled sets down his crossbow. “Well. Safe travels I guess, and all that jazz. Will you be coming back?”

“I don’t know.” The future is a blank expanse in front of him. For once, he feels truly enraptured by that.

“Does anyone know?”

“Techno does. And now you, I guess.”

“You didn’t tell Tommy? Or Tubbo?”

“Nah. They need to figure things out without my interference, I think.”

Purpled stands up and holds out a hand to Wilbur. He takes it thankfully, wincing at the shooting pain that spikes up his back as he does so.

“Everyone’s going to freak out when they see that you’ve gone.”

Wilbur snorts. “Why do you think I’m leaving in the middle of the night?”

Purpled holds out his hand again. This time, Wilbur shakes it.

“Thank you,” he says quietly. Wilbur shrugs. 

“I think you made the right choice,” he says simply, then puts his hands in his pockets. “But then again, I might be a bit biased.”

That makes Purpled snort into his hand.

“Maybe,” he replies. “But aren’t we all?”

Wilbur shakes his head, the barest hint of a smile curving at his lips.

“Probably,” he quips, and then steps into the middle of the stone brick platform. Purpled waves at him. Wilbur waves back. 

Then there’s a bright light, the sensation of rising and falling at the same time, and then nothing at all.

_ WilburSoot has left the Server. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for sticking with this! There will very likely be a shorter sequel to this, thus the new series, about Wilbur's experiences outside of the SMP. It will be rather self-indulgent (an OC will feature rather heavily), but personally I'm really liking my plans for it so far. Hope to see you there in a week or two!

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked this! Please let me know what you think in the comments below!


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